11.04.2011

Costs To Switch Alchemy Specializations Increased On 4.3 PTR

Below is a reader email we received outlining the changes they found on the PRT related to new quests for switching your alchemy specialization. While it looks like the travel involved in switching specializations has gone down the costs for changing have gone up by a significant amount. Read on after the jump for details.Times They Are A Changin'

Here is the email:

I haven't seen this posted anywhere, and I wanted to know what you think.

Right now on the PTR, you can unlearn your alchemy specialization right from the alchemy trainer in Stormwind/Org (or even directly from the spellbook) for free, and pick up a quest to learn a new one. While it may seem like a good thing at first-no more trips out to Stormspire-it looks like it's going to work out to be a very expensive change.

Transmutation spec is the most expensive by far. It requires 4 [Truegold], and costs around 2,900 gold.

At present there doesn't appear to be a way to change specializations without having to complete the quest for the specialization. Meaning that if I have Potion spec, and I want to switch to Transmute, I have to drop potion spec, and then complete the quest for Transmutation.

Now here's where things get interesting, and very VERY BAD. I flew out to Outland, and the old method to change specializations is GONE. The NPCs don't offer them anymore.

Unless I missed something, doing the quests in Org/SW is the ONLY way to change specializations. I know it's PTR and all, but unless something changes changing specializations is going to suck. Badly.

Switch Specs Now

This is pretty bad for people who would want to change specializations frequently. If you have any of your alchemists in a specialization that you don't want I'd be sure to switch their specializations out now as it will get much more expensive after Patch 4.3 if this change goes live. I'd say given the time they took to put these quests and NPC in will likely go live.

As with any news of this sort it is always in our best interest to see if there is a gold-making angle we can pull from this. While this does increase the cost to switch specializations it also may provide a small bump in the prices of the items and materials involved in switching. The people who were unaware of the change and are needing to switch to transmute spec right after the patch may need Truegold and/or Truegold materials.

Mights and Magic

The other area that we might look for is people wanting to finally get their Alchemy Transmute specialization before the patch. The initial quest to become a transmute specialized alchemists is Master of Transmutation available from Zarevhi in Netherstorm. The quest requires (4) Primal Might.

Not only could the cost of Primal Might increase before the patch as demand is driven up by players wanting to specialize for the first time while it's cheap but also materials to make Primal Might may also increase most notably Primal Air which always seems to be the most expensive material involved in creating Primal Might.

For those of you wanting to farm Primal Air the few well known ways include Engineers using a Zapthrottle Mote Extractor on the air clouds in Nagrand as well as farming the air elementals in the Throne of Elements (also conveniently in Nagrand).

Even if you are not wanting to farm the materials buying available materials involved in creating primal mights and resetting them to a higher cost may pay off as people work towards getting their specialization now.

Don't go into this too heavy though as the Primal Might materials will likely drop in value after Patch 4.3 drops Primal Mights as part of acquiring your transmute specialization.

A Brave New World

I understand the need to consolidate the specialization switching to one location and update the materials as there are few if any players farming the old materials needed to complete the old specialization quests but no one likes a price increase.

As with all PTR information there is a chance that this will not go live but it's better to know and it not happen than not know and it happen.

5 comments
:

I'm not surprised, this just seems to make more sense, even if it is more annoying. I guess I'll quit swapping my one alchemist to elixir every few weeks to stock up on my elixirs for raiding!

I'm not on the PTR but I know that in the past the switch from Gnomish/Goblin engineering was similar to Alchemy; pay and just opt for the new one, I don't believe you had to do the quest. (Could be wrong, it's been a long time.) Did this change on the PTR as well?

@Faid Yeah when I wrote this I was careful to sate that currently it is only to learn the initial specialization. The reader clearly stated though that now you unlearn it for free and have to do the quest to learn a new one.

It is possible it could be free after the first one but I'm not clear on that point at the moment.

Note that at the moment, the cheapest way to become a transmute spec alchemist is to first do the potion mastery quest and then pay a little gold to switch. On my server at the moment, the potion mastery mats cost around 60g plus 150g to switch, while 4 Primal Might go for around 1k.

So with that in mind, I don't think investing in Primal Mights is really the way to go even before the patch. Of course, there are always lots of people who don't do their research, so it might still be profitable.

Keep in mind that the Primal Air is also used in two of the primary low level twink enchants, and those aren't going to go out of style any time soon. The rest of the primals might suck (Fire always sells high for me too), but Airs will still be valuable for a long time.